Everblue 2

The Good
I have never scuba dived in my life. I've barely even set foot into the ocean. As far as qualifications goes I am not at all the person to review Everblue 2 as a diving simulator. I know enough about diving, however, to know that Leo should probably have died of decompression sickness several dozen times over the course of the game, so that leads me to suspect that Arika wasn't terribly interested in realism for the game either.

Other details about the game support this as well, like how, aside from plot critical items, every item in a wreck will respawn when you leave the ocean, allowing you to stock up on the same collection of items to sell back on land when you feel the need to grind money. I find that I don't really mind this, however, as the ability to permanently strip a wreck bare would be genuinely depressing given how much effort went into building them. Aside from a single, rare piece no music plays while underwater. All you listen to as you explore the underwater environment is the breathing of your respirator, and the pinging of your sonar, leaving you to immerse yourself fully in the alien world that Arika has made.

I realised several years ago that what I enjoy most in games is visiting places I otherwise never could. Everblue 2 is filled with such spaces, such as a sunken luxury liner or lost pirate ship. They may not feel like real places, but by traveling through them in the game's first person perspective, they do feel like places.

The game's story proceeds at an even clip, directing you towards landmarks or wrecks to find some crucial item or another. Almost every item you find underwater will be used either in the construction of new buildings on Valencia Island, given to people who are trying to collect particular sets of items (medicine, art, furniture, etc.), or, worst comes to worst, sold to the pawn shop for some extra scratch to take to the auction house. Fish can be captured as well, but only on film, after which they are entered into a database and can be displayed in your aquarium.

The limitations placed on you are never arbitrary; there are no figurative guards who block bridges until you speak to the king. Your boat will need to be upgraded to be able to travel farther away from Valencia, and your gear will need to be replaced to allow you to reach deeper and more perilous depths as well as to bring back more and larger items. While I would have preferred a game that let me explore and find wrecks and points of interest on my own rather than be directed to each in turn by the story, Everblue 2 is niche enough as it is. To have made the game any more free-form could have alienated the few fans it found.

The Bad
When forced to point out Everblue 2's shortcomings, there are a few topics critics seem eager to sink their teeth into, some deserved, some not.

The easiest of these is the very low production value of the world outside of diving. The entire island of Valencia is rendered as six static backdrops populated by animated gifs that never move from where they are standing. Essentially the island is just one, large, colorful menu. Really though, what else would it be? What purpose would there be to walk around the island in 3D? There's nothing to explore or discover on the island, there are only inhabitants that give you objectives back out on the ocean. To have spent any more time on the island would have been a waste since it exists only to direct you back to the actual game.

A criticism that is slightly more deserved is one of the ocean diving section of the game. As fantastically realised as every wreck is, the open ocean itself is surprisingly dull. The plot of the game will direct you to every significant location in it, and there is absolutely nothing to look forward to while pinging buried ocean treasures than miles and miles of flat white sand. Fish, as pretty as they are, have no actions beyond flee, ignore, or, in the case of sharks, eat, and the vast majority are set to ignore. You can't even move vertically on the ocean, as Leo appears to be magnetically attached to the ocean floor. The only difference between diving 10 meters and diving 100 meters is how dark the water is.

Finally a gripe I have with many PS2 games is at it's most pronounced in Everblue 2: this game's save file size is massive. It takes a full 1/8th of a card to save one file. This is probably due to the underwater pictures that can be saved, but I would have much preferred that the photo album be saved as a separate file so that the game file could be pared down to the double digit kilobytes it probably takes up.

The Bottom Line
For all the love I have for Everblue 2, I have found many times that I can not recommend it to everyone. A large part of the game, possibly all the game depending on your perspective, is amassing a collection of items. There is no competition or conflict in the game, no rivals or enemies to face. Your only real threat in the game is your own greed, and there's no penalty for just taking your time and coming back for the rest of what you want later.

That said Everblue 2 is the sort of adventure I wish I could see made much more often. Games may be able to tell you a story, but games can also bring you to a place in ways unlike any other media, and precious few do it like Everblue 2.